Memories are made of this…

… butterfly buns, bluebells, rainy nights and fish and chips to name a few. A friend told me this week how a nightdress had triggered a memory of her mother and it made me think of things that create our memories, and it isn’t the big things is it? Its the small things.

I only have to see a butterfly bun and I am transported to my Auntie Mary’s kitchen in Selby Yorkshire, butterfly buns were her specialty and were always there when we visited. My brother and I this summer reminisced about her larder with its mysterious bottles of beer and dark stout on the floor. I remember going for fish and chips on a rainy Friday night to the chip shop in the front room of a small terrace house but where the range of fish on offer would beat any modern specialty restaurant. Memories all triggered by a piece of sponge and some buttercream.

Bluebells are my all time favourite wildflower, they grew in huge drifts on Brayton Barrff and we would pick them on our way home to Lancashire, my Dad placing them in the boot of the car still damp… though I think now we would be arrested ! Bluebells will always remind me of my Dad, just as Nivea Creme brings back my mother. I bought a jar of Nivea moisturiser yesterday and when I took the top off there was the familiar foil top to be peeled back. I instantly remembered the flat round blue tins my mother used and how I would beg to be allowed to puncture that shiny silver layer and release the distinctive smell which along with Goya Gardenia and Soir de Paris were her signature scents.

The big things in life do create lasting memories, births, marriages, deaths , parties and events that we plan to perfection, but sometimes its not the grand gesture but just the wonky butterfly bun, a slightly wilted bluebell and a piece of foil that takes us to our deepest happiest places.